22/10/2004

Grand Prix of Brazil - Free Practice Report

Panasonic Toyota Racing has completed a productive first day of set-up and tyre evaluation work ahead of the season's final race on the challenging 4.309km Interlagos circuit.

Third driver Ryan Briscoe finished the day with ninth quickest time (1m11.166s) while Ricardo Zonta was 14th fastest (1m12.347s) and Jarno Trulli 16th (1m12.545s). Home hero Rubens Barrichello set the pace for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro with a lap in 1m11.166s.

Briscoe who drove a Formula 3000 race at Interlagos in 2002 said: "It's a very enjoyable circuit in a Grand Prix car and I'm happy with the programme that we managed to work through. We did a significant number of laps and as well as the tyre evaluation we tried the car in different downforce configurations."

For Zonta it was a return to the race team in front of his home spectators and a chance to erase the painful memory of 1999 when he crashed in his second race for BAR and suffered injuries to his feet.

"It's great to be racing at home in Brazil again he smiled. It means a lot to me and today was quite a difficult because the track was quite slippery. I had a quick spin after I put one wheel in the dirt but we have improved the car and we have more things to try for tomorrow."

Jarno Trulli was also positive about his race prospects: "We ran a lot of laps and were able to compare the two Michelin compounds without any trouble. The overall lap time does not look too good because I could not put everything together on my first lap on new tyres but I'm happy with the balance and general behaviour of the car."

Behind Barrichello Michael Schumacher set the second fastest time for Ferrari (1m11.334s) with Kimi Raikkonen (1m11.526s) third quickest for West McLaren Mercedes ahead of the Lucky Strike BAR Hondas of Jenson Button (1m11.731s) and Takuma Sato (1m11.988s) which were split by the team's third driver Anthony Davidson (1m11.920s).

Mike Gascoyne said of the team's opening day: "It was a very productive session working on tyre choice and the only real problem was the amount of traffic but that's normal at a short circuit like Interlagos. Overall the cars have looked very consistent. The lap times are very close and just a few tenths of a second can make a huge difference to the final position. I am optimistic that we are in a good position for as strong race to end the season."